Welcome And Why Relationships Matter

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Financial Group Podcast where we talk about leadership insights. Today I'm extremely excited to have Jaclyn Stromminger, who's an author, a podcaster, and understands the value of relationships and how to use them to have all the success that you ever dreamed of. Jacqueline, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Oh my God. Thank you so much for having me, Chad. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

So I had the chance to watch you on a few different podcasts and a chance to talk to you for a little while before you came on. And I want to just go back if we can about 15 or 20 years as to when you started to dig in and realize that the power of relationships can make your life or break your life.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Oh, okay. So great question. So I'm going to take you even further back than those years.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

So when I it was something that was almost ingrained into me as a kid growing up. So my parents are manufactur were manufacturers, reps, they've since retired and they're still living. But I I just remember, you know, my parents didn't have like the this the standard like couple friends, right? You know, but they had all these friends that were their business buddies, people that did they did business with. And so when when I had my bat mitzvah, I mean, granted, my parents

Early Lessons In Relationship Capital

SPEAKER_02 1:25

probably wrote off the whole freaking thing, but you know, like all of the guests, like so many of them, were their clients. And it was like this intertwined thing, right? That you just see. And then you you go fast forward, and I'm in, I'm now I've graduated college and I'm in business and I'm in marketing and sales. And I remember I was this one company, brand new, literally startup, and I start sending letters. Yes, something that we probably don't do very much often now, but literally sent out promotional letters to different magazine companies to talk to them about my business. And then I would be following up with phone calls, send out another letter, following it up with a phone call. And we didn't really have emails as much back. I mean, we did, but not was not as big, you know. Anyway, but right, right. You know, I mean, I was like one of those people at one point. I remember if you would go back to the days like AOL, like I I actually had one of those blocks so I could put an ad in there for the magazine that I was working for. Anyway, so dating myself right now, it's not even funny. But but it was one of those things that I just realized that I was building these relationships with these, with these people and these clients. And you know, fast forward when I changed industries or I changed companies, I could pick up the phone and say, Hey, do you remember when I was with blank? Now I'm here. Could we get a meeting? And it was I was able to open more doors. And then I was with a company, and I will never forget this. I it it made me incredibly decide that I was no longer aligned with the CEO. We had a meeting with a massive company. And when I say massive, it's it's got two letters and an ampersand in between it. You can probably figure it out. And my the CEO of the company, we were in a meeting, and I kept saying to him, we have to go, we're gonna be late. Well, we ended up being two hours late, and I got yelled at by the by by the person we were supposed to be meeting with. And I uh to this day, like I still feel the pain because I was like, I know, and I'm sorry, it was not me. I should have it was a learning lesson. Like, if not if I'm I should have just left myself and say I am going to be there.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

But it was it was one of those quintessential moments when you're like relationships mean everything. And I just burned something, and I literally groveled to the guy who set the meeting up for me. And I've you just you just don't do that. And I was and I realized I I know how much a relationship means and what that what that value is. I talk about relationship and being relationship capital because it it's it's a financial, it's it's worth everything in gold when you work when you're with and do the right things with you the people that you're related to and connected with. And it was probably that moment on the train back as I was living in Boston instead of in New York at that point. And I was I remember thinking, uh, this I'm not this company is not right for me because I can't like the fact that that CEO did not get the fact that we had to leave and that we were ruining a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

That I was like, kind of done.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

And think about the relationships you have going back that many years. I have one in particular where a friend of mine today, close friend, he was in business for a couple of months. I walked, he was in an apartment. I trusted that he had a vision for being big, and he grew to be big, and we stayed connected because we were together when we trusted each other when we were both in our 20s, yeah. But but we had that aligned synergy, yeah, that today we we pick up the phone on the first ring and we're excited to hear from each other.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Right it well, exactly, and it's like it's those relationships that you build. I you know, I go back to I was working at a magazine, and the one of the publishers of the magazine that worked out, he was the publisher of Coach Magazine, does not exist anymore. He has since moved into a different industry. But man, I can pick up the phone, he calls me, and it's you know, but you have to you have to respect the people and the relationships, of course. And and and the other thing too is you have to also know that it's okay, it's okay if there's time that goes by, but you have to like how did you nurture the relationship in the beginning? I just had um a woman on my podcast, and she we were talking about she does a lot of marketing and branding, and she was talking about one of her clients, how she her clients have have scrunchies, I think they're scented. I didn't get into what they were, but she got them into one of the glamour shows, like the Emmys or the Oscars. What one of those? I don't really watch them, but anyway. But she said it was just again relationships. You know, I had met somebody seven, eight years ago. We had,

The Meeting That Burned Trust

SPEAKER_02 6:40

you know, we kind of briefly stayed connected here and there, but I could just pick up the phone and say, Hey, do you remember me? I have, you know, I've got this client. Can we figure out a way to work together?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So, Jacqueline, let me ask you this question. Right, for me and you, right? Kindred spirits, this seems obvious. Are you saying that there's people out there that don't understand this concept of kindred spirits, shared philosophy, loyalty to friendship, following through the things we do? Are you saying that there's people out there that today don't understand that?

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yes, they don't understand that, and they also don't know how to do it. And because so many of us do things, I'm gonna, if you're not just listening to this, I'm holding up my phone, do things in 140 characters or less, they don't know how to actually have a conversation, you know, look people in the eye. It's it's being able to talk to people and being able to look at people, not for to get something from them, but to find out ways that you can work together. If and we have to go back to thinking, okay, if I look if you and I are talking, how can we help each other versus let me just try to sell you something?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

And it's not where did you get your confidence? Like you have a lot of confidence, right? So so you didn't just get your confidence today. There was a time when you were lost and you were trying to find your way because there were things going on in your life that just possibly weren't working the way you want. So, when did you get your confidence? And give us a success story of where the relationship worked so well, you were blown away by the opportunities that the person gave you.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

So I'll give you, I can give you a couple different examples on the opportunities. So I'm gonna take you back to a couple of different things. So I grew up not looking this way, that was sort of one thing. I had parents that you would say things to me like, don't worry, we'll get some things fixed when you're 16, we'll have some surgeries, blah, blah, blah. So I was probably one of I wore, you know, insecurity as a badge. Like I was probably the most insecure human being on the face of the planet. And but I learned how to walk into a room and shake people's hands and introduce myself because I had to take a deep breath and be like, okay, I can do this. And you get comfortable shaking hands and introducing yourself. So even though I didn't feel great on the outside, I learned to fake it, so to speak, and get the confidence to shake people's hands. So that kind of came along that kind of came in time and built. And then, you know, there was a and I I tell people this, you know, I could pick up the phone and talk to you if you were a business, but you were if you were a person that could be a friend, oh, I I was afraid to do that. Like that was a huge fear, like you're right. And so I actually, and I always say this to people, you know, I actually got involved in network marketing, and I would say network marketing is actually self-improvement wrapped around a product. And when you are one of the biggest things that it teaches you is it teaches you to pick up the phone, it pick teaches you, and I knew all of this in sales and I did it, but it took me a different to a different level doing it on a personal level with individual people versus businesses, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

So you would sell and you would get people that go under you to to raise them, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

And but you start you, and what I loved the most about doing it was helping all the I didn't care about selling the data mass product. I love the fact that I could help the people on my team grow. And that was the part that was most rewarding to me. So when you when you start gaining that confidence, and then you start putting yourself out there in multiple ways. So I was putting myself out there personally, I was being out there going to businesses, like so, all those three things were coming together, and you realize that you, you know, you see growth, and and then you also see, you know, you're in like I was in different companies, you know, regular corporate jobs. And when you start to realize that there's not an alignment, so the CEO who screwed up that relationship, the other company that I joined, and people didn't have their stuff about them, so the company wasn't going in the right direction. You can and and you

Confidence Without The Phone Screen

SPEAKER_02 11:20

know that there's something better, you figure out what it is that's gonna be better, and all this stuff kind of comes together, and you just start, you work on yourself and you work on where you want to go, and you you decide, okay, do I want to be the insecure person or do I want to be the secure person? And you put a line in the sand and you start moving so other way.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

So there was there were comments that you had made in the past where you just didn't feel like you were on the right track. And you know, I was involved in multi-level marketing. I did the NSA water filters back 20 something years ago, and and and and I couldn't sell one, and it turned into a whole nother story for another day. But it's like you know, you try things, you put yourself out there, you learn about rejection, you learn about the people you're working with and how they treat you when it works or it doesn't work, and then through relationship, maybe it leads to another job, another opportunity, or you could copy someone else's business model, right? Right, it just takes you to another path. And I think wheels in motion lead to opportunity as long as you're always moving forward. And so when you're driving without direction, you lost your way. What when do you feel like you got into the zone of being in the direction you want to be? And how did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 12:38

So, you know, the story that I that I tell is I was driving my kids, and you made this is probably what you you know, I was driving my kids to school, and you know, the car basically drove itself that day, which is you know, no, I don't have I didn't have a Tesla. And uh uh but I just remember, you know, I just keep thinking, what am I doing? And I remember coming home that day, and I just sat down and I wrote down what I wanted and where we're where I wanted my family to be, and we made changes, and I kind of figured out like what do I want to what do I want to be? And we ended up making a huge shift, and it it's it's been great. And when I we moved from the east coast to the west coast, never lived past Mississippi before. And when I moved out to I I'm in Reno, Nevada now, I knew nobody. And the moving trucks were unpacking the house, and my kids were gonna go to some first day of like pre-s, like meet the new kids event, whatever. And I said, okay, I'm going to an I'm going to a networking event. I'm going to go meet a bunch of people that I've never met. I remember I had to take a cold shower because my hot the hot the hot water was not working in my house yet. You know, there was something the pilot light wasn't working. I didn't know that. Well I'm like, shit, the water's cold. And and I started meeting people. And I, you know, I started working on this a business and it grew. And you know, and I remember, you know, people started to say to me, you know, you know more people here than I do, and I grew up here. How is that?

unknown 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Because I would go out and meet people, and you just have to you have to put yourself out there to meet people, to the point where I would I meet people anywhere. Like, and you, I guess this is also one of those things that you learn. I lived in Manhattan, so one of the big things about in Manhattan is you could be standing in line at the movie theater and you're waiting to get in. And what do you do? You talk, you talk to people, you don't just stand there, you don't twiddle your thumb, you're not looking at your phone, you talk.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

And next thing you know, you're gonna know everybody in the in the movie theater. You're gonna know everybody that's like two, two, three down, four down, whatever, and you just talk. Or, you know, you walk, so my kids would see, you know, would see me walk into the grocery store and I'd make conversation with the people that are at the deli counter, or like, you know, we're looking at the 20 different kinds of eggs.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

I'm like, okay, I just don't know where you don't know where it's going to take you. But what's so cool is as you shifted, you go to Reno, and I have here in the in the bar, Fairies Your Energy Bar, stand tall and be proud. And and at the end of the day, your attitude was I always have something up for the person I'm talking to. If it's even just a smile, yeah, and an acknowledgement that they exist.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Yeah, just smile, Pete. Think about this. When you're walking down the street and somebody smiles at you, what do you do? You smile

Starting Over In Reno By Networking

SPEAKER_02 15:45

back.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

That's right. So this means that your vibe attracts your tribe.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

It does, it totally does. And you know, I could tell you, you know, there were so many times, you know, think about if you're in sales, like think about you walk into a sales meeting. If you're if you don't have the right energy when you walk in, the people that are in the room are gonna feel it. So, but if you walk in confident, smiling, feeling good, you might not actually feel 100%, but you can fake it. You can say, I'm gonna be amazing. This is gonna be awesome. Walk in full of energy. How do you walk into that room? And if you walk in feeling great, they're gonna pick up on that energy. But if you're feeling timid and like, oh, I don't know if this is the right thing, are they gonna really like this? Is my product gonna be okay? Guess what? They're gonna pick up on that too. And they're gonna be like, maybe this isn't the right product because you don't think it's the right product.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So so when we're the CEO of us, right? So in the world that I live in as an entrepreneur and kind of out there doing the things that I do, I've reached plateaus. It was actually like in 2009, 10, 11, I remember reaching plateaus and feeling stuck in my world. And then one day, you like the world shifted. I I changed the plateau where I was at and I doubled it. And and you know, five years later, I reached the doubling point. So, you know, you double it again, and and I've I no longer have plateaus for me because I'm the CEO of my life, and and if I want something, I dig in and do it. Share with us, if you will. Now you're in the business side of your life, you're honed in, you're doing well, you're coaching other people, you're mentoring them, you see people's weaknesses, you see people's fear. How do you help them overcome that?

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Well, we go back to one of the things that I know that you know near and dear. It's clarity, it's mission, it's vision. We look at their, I call it your achievement code, it's your values. Because those are the things that always have to be shifting. You know, when you hit a plateau, right? You hit, you know, slowly. So you reach this point, okay. Then you're like, okay, now what? Okay, well, now I need to redefine. Now I need to go here. What's my next vision? Okay, now I'm here. What's my next vision?

SPEAKER_01 17:58

So hold on one quick second. I think that some people don't realize they even reached a plateau. So I would say for anybody watching this, go back three years and see if you have the same numbers you had. And if you do, that's called a plateau.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

That is right. Well, that's also where I say you have to be measure, monitoring, and adjusting, MMA, right? Like martial arts, right? But we're fighting, we're we're always like MMA. I'm measuring what I'm doing, I'm monitoring what I'm doing, and then I'm adjusting. And it's the same thing. Whether you haven't, maybe you haven't hit your numbers, you've reached your numbers, you want to go here, but you're and you always have to have a number that's bigger than what you think you can do, so that you're striving towards something. You know, you know, how many times have you heard again, whether you write a book, you're you're doing a term paper, you got two weeks to do it and you procrastinate, but you get it done in two days. If you had just said yourself I had two days to do it, you would get it done in two days. If you set yourself as like, oh, I'm a if I'm a I'm a salesperson and I'm I'm a I'm a hundred thousand dollar a year salesperson, well then you're gonna be a hundred thousand dollar a year salesperson. But if you say you're gonna be a $250,000 salesperson, guess what? You're going after that. Yeah, you right. And so what are you telling yourself to and what are the goals? You know, what what's what's on your board? Like I just actually I wrote a nut I wrote myself a check the other day just to put on my board. Good. It's a it's got a large number, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

So I love large numbers, right? Because because you're visualizing and you're doing it yourself to get where you want to go so that you could not only be what you want to be considered successful, but you could help other people be able to get there and have the breakthroughs. So in my abundant life roadmap experience that I take people through, I've created this thing where this tool where you talk about your values, your audacious goals that require money and time to achieve. We look out three years to see what it takes for you to be happy personally, professionally, and financially. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and all of this is very

Breaking Plateaus With Bigger Goals

SPEAKER_01 20:10

traditional tools for people to move forward, but very few people actually take the time to do it.

unknown 20:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

And what I love about doing this with people is their eyes become bug eyes, they get so excited that they have someone that could pull this out of them. It's really quite the experience, and I think you do something very similar.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

I do, and and actually, I do the I'll use the wheel of life. So you look at the eight different areas in people's life, you know, where they are, you know, spiritually, like how they're feeling, the personal development, how they are with their family, how they are with their relationships, how they are with their career. You know, there's eight things on the wheel, and where are they in those? And where, you know, on a scale of one to ten, how where are those area areas? Yeah, and you know, you're talking about those big audacious goals, you know. I I put the H in it, so the big hairy ones, big, hairy, audacious goals. Yeah, right. And you go after that big, hairy, audacious goal, and then how do you achieve it? One bite at a time, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Right. So in the in the wheel of life, right? So we look at it and we we ask people to go one out of 10. How do you feel you are doing as an example professionally? And and the way that that wheel works, I believe the way I understand it is if I'm at a seven, I would ask them, uh, would you like to be how would you what would you do to get to a 10? Exactly. And you create the to-dos to get to a 10. And and how often we ask people, are you happy? And they go, I'm happy. And then I look at them and I ask, would you like to be happier? Because there's always more to our life, but I think that people of a large portion of people in our life, I think they go through it where they just accept that this is the life they're given and don't realize that we have the ability to become more of anything that we choose.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Right. We have the we it's a choice. We can decide to make a change or we can stay where we are and stay the same. And then that wheel, what the interesting thing is, is is it's also about being somewhat even in all the eight areas. You know, what creates a bumpy wheel? I mean, a wheel when you're driving on your car and you've you've got a lump in your car and it's dig in, what's gonna happen? Right, it's it's not going to be a smooth ride. So if when we look at the wheel and we're like jagged all around the edges and it's not smooth or even remotely smooth, we know there are definitely areas that we need to be focusing on so that people can move those numbers so they're more even all around. And of course, the one thing that I I work with people on is we have to pick. Like we can't do all of them at the at the same time because you can't change everything at the same time. We have to pick the things that are going to matter most first, and then we have to obviously write them, but but move those things into place so that we can move things to a scale to, you know, how am I going to get that to a 10? How do we move that you know closer?

SPEAKER_01 23:12

So, Jacqueline, do you have an example, if you can, in the last couple of years where you're working with a client or a relationship where you've really seen them break through and really open up to becoming more because you were you were able to open their eyes to an opportunity. Do you have an example of of that?

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yeah. So, you know, I have a couple different examples. So I'll share with you, you know, one of my one of my clients was I don't want to say she was in a dead end job, but she just wasn't really, really happy at all. Like she just, it was like going through the motions and you know, being on that hamster wheel. And she just we started working together and we started to really sort of outline, you know, we went through the wheel, we started looking at her vision, we looked at the things that she really loved to do, like the things that, you know, if she wasn't working, what did she like to do? And then we backtracked it and said, okay, and we started looking at different companies that she that may be more aligned with her values and the things that she liked to do. And within six months, she was at a new company working, making more money, and it was like the best. It was, I was so excited for her because she found a way to take something that she was passionate about and put it into her day-to-day life and move that needle, you know. And I have a, you know, one thing is I have a client right now who we're working on, she's actually

Coaching Tools That Create Breakthroughs

SPEAKER_02 24:50

another coach, and we are actually working on a program, and it's so exciting to see her light up that she's where she's going. And that's what you want to see. You want to see the the sparks lying and the smiles on people's faces, and you want to be cheering for them, and and it's just for me, it's like such a great feeling like to see that happen for people, and so watching her grow into that amazing, just priceless.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

So you shared with me earlier, too, that you have you got into schools and you have some programs there. Can you share with us a little bit more about what's going on there?

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah. So I started a community on the school platform, S-K-O-O-L. It's the unstoppable success community. And we have um different tiers. So the first tier, it's just being in part of the community. You get power hours so you can actually come and work. And I share things every single week, things to work on. This week I'm doing a whole, there's a whole program that we've been doing on goal setting. Actually, it's been all around Robin Sharma's book, the 5 a.m. Club, and the four different areas that he talks about. So we're kind of bringing that in. And then there's a different level, one level up where you actually get part of a club that actually a roundtable discussion that you can work on. And then there's an executive level where basically it's a true mastermind. You get me, you get all the other things that are in there. It's a lot deeper. You get the I have a whole relationship capital course that's coming out. So you automatically get into that course. So it's a lot of, it's a lot of great, you know. We, you know, one of the biggest things that I'm looking for in that community is people that really want to have unstoppable success and want to be around other people that are striving for success too. And, you know, like-minded people help like-minded people grow, and that's what we want.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

How did you learn about the mastermind groups? There was a time after 2009, I created from Jack Canfield's book, Mastermind Groups. I had four a week, 50 people removing roadblocks, changing lives. People showed up, people couldn't get enough of it. And with weekly focus, I found it to be nothing short of magical. How did you come about mastermind groups?

SPEAKER_02 27:12

God, you know, I think it was one of those things that we just did in college, to be honest with you. And I just, you know, think about it this way. I guess this is how I thought about it. I never even, I just thought it was a you just did it. You know, when I was in college, I was part of a group. We had a class called Marketing Game and or Management Game. And management game, you know, everybody had different

Unstoppable Success Community And Masterminds

SPEAKER_02 27:40

roles. So I was VP of marketing, there was a CEO, whatever, whatever. And we played this game. But every week we got together and we talked about obviously the business itself, but we also talked about where we were going in senior year. What were we doing? What were we doing after college? What were we applying for? And so that I think was sort of the start of it. And then as I got into when I got into network marketing, I wanted to grow more and I wanted to be around other people that wanted to grow. So I connected people that I went and asked other people, so what's your goal? What's your goal? What's your goal? And people would tell me, I'm like, okay, you have the same goal. Let's form a group. So we meet every single week and hold each other accountable and we work on things that we want to do. And so I guess it was just, I guess, natural, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Absolutely love that. And so we have a lot of people that are gonna be watching this, they want to be able to find you, connect with you, talk to you, be part of your school program, S-K-O-O-L. They want to just they want to just be able to pick your brain. Uh, other than your email, your website, LinkedIn, how how best do they communicate with you?

SPEAKER_02 28:52

You know, LinkedIn is a great place. You could also just shoot me an email on me at info at Jacquelynstrominger.com. You could also, I have another website which is also leaptoyoursuccess.com if you can't spell my name or my last my first or last name because I they're they're they're both a mouthful. But leaptoyoursuccess.com is another place that you can find me also, and you can find me at coach at leaptoyoursuccess.com. So reach out to me. Go to the school community, and you can find me at Unstoppable Success and search for search for the group there as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

So so I absolutely thank you, Jacqueline, for participating in this with Co-Financial Group Inside Leadership Podcast. Please subscribe. Please let us know that you enjoy this. You could reach out to me as well at chat at cofinancial.com.

How To Reach Us And Closing

SPEAKER_01 29:40

I'm here for you. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Instagram, Facebook. I actually love the opportunities to be able to present these incredible leaders to you and to be able to share with you what how other people feel and think to be able to find the levels of success that they find. It's not by accident. You need to wake up every day, have focus and clarity, enjoy the dog because dogs are our best friend. They are our best friend. And on that note, I'm going to share with you my final disclosure. And I want everyone to just have a great day, reach their goals, focus for more, and have fun while you're doing it. Thank you, Jacqueline.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Thank you, Chad.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Chad Covestment Executive, 4666 Techni Road, Northbrook, IL, 60062. Securities are offered through Cetra Advisors LLC, a registered broker dealer and member of Finres IPC. Advisory services are offered through Cetera Investment Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor. Citera is under separate ownership from any other named entity. Jacqueline Strumminger is not affiliated with or endorsed by Citra Advisors LLC. Any information provided by the business is in no way related to Citera or its registered representatives.